SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–When healthy, Giants’ ace Madison Bumgarner is as durable as any pitcher in baseball, a perennial candidate to throw 200 innings.

He’s achieved the feat in six of the last seven seasons, only missing the mark in 2017 when an April dirt-bike crash and subsequent shoulder injury cost him nearly half of his starts.

This spring, Bumgarner said he feels like the horse he’s always been, but there could be a different “200” milestone the left-hander is after. It’s one he’s reached three times in his career, and one his early spring performances indicate he’s capable of hitting again.

Bumgarner owns three 200-strikeout seasons, setting a career-high with 251 punchouts in 226.2 innings in 2016. That year, he also set personal-best with 10.0 strikeouts per nine innings, an indicator that his offerings were as challenging to hit as they’ve ever been.

“(200 strikeouts) is something that’s nice to have on your name,” Bumgarner said. “But at the end of the day, it’s not a necessity. I pitch for a strikeout when the situation calls for it, when there’s a runner at third and less than two outs. Stuff like that. Or if you get ahead of a guy 0-2 or 1-2.”

In his third outing of the spring Wednesday, Bumgarner faced the San Diego Padres and recorded his third straight line with at least four strikeouts, a challenging feat considering his Cactus League innings are limited.

In 3.1 innings of work, the Giants’ Opening Day starter allowed five hits, two earned runs and one walk while fanning six Padres’ hitters. Bumgarner allowed three straight extra base hits to end his outing, but thought a backdoor slider he threw to his final hitter, San Diego third baseman Christian Villanueva, was the best pitch he made all day.

“It was a perfect pitch,” Bumgarner said of the ball Villanueva slammed into the left field corner for a double. “If I was going to go up there and set it in a spot, that’s where it would have been.”

Though the best pitchers are often ahead of the best hitters from a timing standpoint during the first half of spring contests, the Giants should take the high volume of strikeouts as an encouraging sign from a pitcher who missed nearly three months last season.

Bumgarner might not need to hit 200 strikeouts to consider his season a success, but some of his best seasons have come when he’s consistently pitched ahead in counts and induced more swing-throughs.

“The main concern is getting them in and out of there pretty quick,” Bumgarner said. “Not throwing a ton of pitches to a guy. I guess everybody’s got a different thought process on it. I’ve played with guys that try to strike everybody out but that’s just kind of how I do it.”

When Bumgarner returned from his shoulder injury last July, he slowly began to regain strength, but he didn’t post the same type of numbers the Giants have been accustomed to benefitting from throughout his career. A year after Bumgarner set a new career-high in strikeouts, his average dipped to just 8.2 per nine innings.

This spring, Bumgarner has racked up 15 strikeouts in eight innings of work. While that pace won’t stick during the regular season, the sight of Bumgarner missing more bats is a welcome one for the Giants.

Kerry Crowley is a multimedia beat reporter covering the San Francisco Giants. He spent his early days throwing curveballs in San Francisco’s youth leagues before studying journalism at Arizona State University. Kerry has covered every level of baseball, from local preps to the Cape Cod League, and is now on a quest to determine which Major League city serves the best cheeseburger.